1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and a computer readable recording device that detect a digest image obtained by abstracting a series of images captured in time series.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an examination using a capsule endoscope that is introduced into a subject to capture images of the inside of a lumen, imaging is performed for about eight hours at an imaging frame rate of 2 to 4 frames/sec., for example. As a result, a large amount (several tens of thousands of) images that are captured in times series are obtained during one examination. These images may include a redundant scene which is obtained as a result of depicting the same imaging target in a plurality of frames due to continuous imaging performed when the capsule endoscope remains in one place for a while, for example. For this reason, to efficiently evaluate a series of images, it is important to detect a digest image representing a digest of these images.
As a technique involving the detection of a digest image, WO 2008/041401, for example, discloses an image processing apparatus that extracts an image from a series of continuous images, in which an amount of change between continuous images is calculated in time series, and a predetermined number of images which are arranged in decreasing order of change amount are extracted from the series of images as images including a scene to be detected.